Matthew Smith wrote:
I'm sure there are already some pre-made proxy server modules (or you could take the HTTP modules and plug them into POE or some other perl server daemon module.Zebedee Gray wrote:I am trying to work out if it is possible for a parent to run a program in the background that will log the contents of chat pages that their children visit. What I would then want to do is run a program that would list the contents and allow the parent to see if the child was visiting someone they don't know or possibly being 'groomed' by a paedophile for a later meeting. I'm looking at using Perl with a Tk based GUI, but have no idea about the relevant modules that I would want to use - anyone got any ideas?
I can't think of any easy way to do this through a Perl route, unless you feel up to writing a proxy server in Perl - this could certainly be done with LWP and maybe some DB access modules, but might take a little while to code. Anyone out there done this already?
I think that it would probably be easier to install an off-the-shelf proxy and set it to hold all pages visited. You could then go back and peruse at your leisure.
Although I wouldn't know a chat page if you hit me around the head of it, if it's something that permits constant interaction, I'd guess that it would be sending header information saying "don't cache this" - this could be a snag if using a proxy because it may not hold onto such pages. So, writing your own LWP-based proxy which ignores things like the nocache pragma may be the solution; get it to cache all pages in a certain directory, then you can peruse them at your leisure with a web browser.
Conclusion: have a hunt on Google, possibly including LWP Perl and proxy in your search.
Cheers
M
One issue to be aware of is that some web chatting systems use HTTP only to deliver a java client and then are communicating directly over some protocol that may have something or nothing to do with HTTP. I'm afraid that it is likely you would have to write a proxy system for each protocol. Not a big problem if you are only trying to target one chat system; a pain in the butt if you want to create a general system.
One alternative to consider is looking at using ip-chains or some other firewalling system to store all the packets coming from or going to a particular address. Then when you have the packet stream, just re run it at pull out the relevant payloads. Might require more Systems Administration fu than programming but could be an alternative to writing an extensive proxy system. In eather case, perl will be quite capable of helping you do what you want. I guess you just need to decide on the approach and requirements you want to meet.
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